Volpe web page spoof
p2p news / p2pnet: “Joe Volpe’s deep commitment to integrity inspired me to support his campaign! I borrowed $5400 from my parents in a manner compliant with all …”
That was how http://www.youthforvolpe.ca/ kicked off.
But it was a spoof aimed at Liberal leadership candidate Joe Volpe who returned close to $C30,000 supposedly donated by children, “including the 11-year-old twins of a former vice-president of a generic drug company,” as the Globe & Mail describes it.
“By early yesterday afternoon, the Volpe team had the website pulled down,” says the Globe & Mail. It also included testimonials, and under How can you help, said, “Want to support Joe, but don’t know if you can? Talk to your parents, you might have already done your part,” the story states, going on:
“Mr. Volpe’s campaign had the site shut down without knowing, it seems, who put it up: ‘Hi Everyone,” wrote Brenden Johnstone, who is with the Volpe campaign, in an e-mail to other leadership campaigns. ‘There has been concern about how the issue of the Volpe donations was reflecting on the leadership race.
“My Office has had the website suspended through CIRA [Canadian Internet Registration Authority] and CDNS [Canadian Domain Name Services] and it will be down as soon as 6 p.m. I think the issue with the website has been dealt with. . . .”
p2pnet knows how the site owners feel.
Free speech doesn’t exist in Canada and anything which offends someone else is easily disposed of.
Currently, Kazaa owner Sharman Networks and Kazaa ceo Nikki Hemming are after us for alleged libel in an article outlining Australian court proceedings into Hemming’s assets. They’re also demanding the identity of a p2pnet reader who posted an anonymous comment included in the same story. But as p2pnet editor Jon Newton says in the Stop-the-Blogsuit Campaign, “as far as I’m concerned, an anonymous post is the same as a confidential source. I don’t have to like a post, or even agree with it. But I believe that as an honest and responsible human being, I do have to safeguard the poster, if indeed I know who he or she is which in this case, I don’t.
“If Sharman wins it’ll make life a potential hell for bloggers in Canada, at the least. And you can bet the case will be used as a reference for similar actions around the world.”
Meanwhile, “Volpe’s campaign ran into controversy when it was disclosed that the campaign had received 20 separate contributions of $5,400 from five executives of drug manufacturer Apotex Inc. and each of their wives and children,” says Wikipedia.
“The donations had been made in April 2006. NDP member of Parliament Pat Martin filed an official complaint on May 29, asking elections commissioner Raymond Landry to investigate whether an attempt had been made to circumvent the Elections Act. Interim Liberal leader Bill Graham and party president Steven MacKinnon defended Volpe. Volpe’s spokesman claimed that the contributions were legitimate, even though Canada’s Elections Act forbids donations made on behalf of a third party.”
If you don’t like PayPal, here’s an address:
Jon Newton
PO Box 1532, Lake Cowichan
British Columbia V0R 2G0
Digg this story.
Also See:
Globe & Mail – Campaign gets tangled in website spoof, June 2, 2006
demanding the identity – Free speech in Canada, June 2, 2006
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June 4th, 2006 at 12:28 am
are all jibber-jabber, they need to get to work!
June 4th, 2006 at 1:23 pm
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June 4th, 2006 at 1:23 pm
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June 4th, 2006 at 1:29 pm
Free speech does not say that Jon or anyone else has to host your speech on their website, just protect your right to create your own website to say what you wish to say on your own dime.
I host many sites, and as strong a supporter of free/libre speech I would expect that if anyone has something unflattering to say about me that they would do so on a site other than my own.
I don’t know who you are, and don’t know what your original complaint is, but I don’t think that complaining on this site will ever get you anywhere. If anything it makes me more likely to dismiss the complaint if and when it is posted on some other site.
Note: I’m not the user of now, nor would I ever be, of p2p software that is not FLOSS http://flora.ca/floss licensed so that I or some other third party can do an independent security audit. This means that most of the advertisements on p2pnet are just white noise to me, and I hope that nobody would ever use any of them. If you want to use p2p I recommend using BitTorrent (which is what I use), FreeNet, or the large number of other FLOSS choices.
June 5th, 2006 at 9:48 am
Whats wrong with supporting the best politicians money can buy?